Episode#46

Starting in branding and marketing with King Gee workwear clothing, being a young female in a male dominated space, through to capital raising and managing a forestry business in Nicaragua, Sonia Shwabsky brings a diverse career experience to her role as CEO of Kwik Kopy. 

In Episode#46 - Starting out in clothing retail while at University soon saw Sonia enjoy the opportunity to travel the world attending trade shows and factories in clothing and apparel. On a fast promotion track through the Pacific Brands business meant a variety of roles through to GM with working with a varied range of clients from large corporate client accounts, right through to small businesses.

A desire for a broader working experience and a sense for adventure ending up in Latin America, and Nicaragua specifically running a forestry business after initially just raising capital for it in and around the GFC in 2008. The first taste of franchising came a time after through attaining the Dale Carnegie Training license for the country.

A quick departure from Nicaragua came after internal turmoil, and re-entering corporate Australia in the print and digital franchise space, which soon led to the role of CEO Kwik Kopy Australia.

0:00 Intro

0:53 Key career start and experience in clothing with King Gee work wear

1:27 The start in clothing while working in retail at University

2:26 Seeing the world with trade shows globally in clothing and apparel

2:48 Starting with King Gee as a product and brand manager to GM

4:06 Working on large client corporate accounts for clothing workwear and everything in between

4:40 Working with small businesses while managing accounts with corporates

7:44 Offshore manufacturing of clothing and price points

9:24 A young female in a male dominated industry and finding that an advantage

10:49 The decision to be made to stay with corporate or move for more experience - looking for adventure overseas

13:28 Traveling and the entrepreneur in them finding an opportunity in lumbar in Nicaragua, raising capital then the GFC sees them having to run the business

15:00 What’s involved with running a forestry business in the 3rd world

16:48 Learnings from the Nicaragua experience and problem solving

18:38 Exiting the forestry business and into the training space and the entry into franchising with Dale Carnegie Training

20:35 Starting the franchise in Nicaragua as a new territory for the brand

22:35 The core training products being delivered

23:12 Leaving the training business and working in a digital marketing agency as COO

24:07 Nicaragua turmoil and time to leave

24:59 Moving back to Australia in 2018 in a hurry from Nicaragua and having to leave everything behind 

27:42 Got into franchising with another print franchise as Chief Marketing Officer working on digital transformation and e-commerce

28:51 The appeal of the print and digital marketing space

30:02 Coming across to Kwik Kopy as CEO and the desire to get back into senior management

31:05 After 11 years overseas did Sonia feel any disconnection with corporate Australia

32:05 What’s the day to day like as a CEO of Kwik Kopy?

34:03 Keeping on top of tech development for the future

35:33 What is being worked on for the future of Kwik Kopy business

37:49 Wrap up

Podcast Produced by: magnetic business media

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